Microsoft differentiates itself from competitors by offering private, public, and hybrid clouds. Combining the expertise gained from running IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services with a history of providing on-premises solutions, Microsoft is able to develop solutions with hybrid cloud in mind unlike any other company. Examples of this are SQL Server Stretch Database and Microsoft Azure StorSimple, in which on-premises solutions have built-in capabilities to automatically scale by utilizing Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft is taking things a step further with Microsoft Azure Stack, which blurs the line between public, private, and hybrid clouds by extending Azure into customers’ datacenters. Azure Stack is not a different version of Azure, but provides the same portal, APIs, application model, and tooling as Azure. It's this month's topic for the Azure Partner Community call and blog series.

Microsoft Azure Stack overview

The concept of the hybrid cloud has been around for years. There are several reasons, such as regulatory and latency concerns, why a company would not be able to move its entire infrastructure to the cloud. Hybrid cloud does come with challenges, though. For example, how to develop and architect applications to seamlessly work both on-premises and in the cloud. IT resources must have knowledge of both cloud technology and on-premises infrastructure. Also, hybrid cloud doesn’t always provide the speed, flexibility, and scale of public cloud.

The partner opportunity

Microsoft Azure Stack presents new opportunities to assist your customers with their digital transformation plans. Customers that choose hybrid cloud environments should have the same flexibility and innovation capability that cloud customers have. Azure technologies are now accessible on-premises with Azure Stack, and organizations can now modernize their applications across hybrid cloud environments.

Resources

Get hands-on with Azure Stack and learn more on the April 13 partner call

Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 is available for download now. Read the March 1 announcement for a look at what's new in Azure Stack TP3, descriptions of hybrid use cases for Azure and Azure Stack, and a roadmap update. Then, sign up for the April 13 Azure Infrastructure Partner call for an in-depth discussion about Azure Stack.